1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for the preparation of chicken eggs.
2 Description of the Related Art
The increasing risk of salmonella and the ISO standard 9002, as well as the HACCP (the new European hygiene law), no longer permit the classical method of preparing eggs (as a soft boiled breakfast egg), in particular in the hotel and restaurant trade due to the product liability of the operators.
To guarantee the destruction of salmonella, the customary preparation of eggs recommends cooking the breakfast eggs for at least twenty minutes in boiling water. However, after this treatment the eggs exhibit a distinct hard consistency, are bad to eat, difficult to digest and dry and thus intolerable in turn to good health.
The DE 31 23 881 A1 discloses a process of the aforementioned type, which is supposed to have a positive effect on the quality of the prepared egg, since the eggs are cooked by means of a main heating circuit at a preparation temperature that is below the boiling point of water. If desired, the eggs may be kept warm by means of an additional heating circuit of lower thermal output.
Irrespective of the fact that the said publication does not even mention the salmonella problem, the process disclosed therein cannot guarantee the mandatory reliable destruction of salmonella because the preparation temperature that is applied ranges only from 65.degree. to 85.degree. C. and the subsequent heat retaining temperature is only above 60.degree. C. Yet the reliable destruction of salmonella requires that the entire egg, i.e. also the central core region, be heated to at least 55.degree. to 80.degree. C. for at least ten minutes.
The DE 2633630 A1 also discloses the preparation of eggs at temperatures below the boiling point of water and a subsequent servable heat holding. This document, too, does not deal in any way with the risk of salmonella. Since for the preparation only a water temperature above 70.degree. C. and a subsequent heat holding temperature ranging from 50.degree. to 60.degree. C. is disclosed, this preparation method, too, cannot guarantee the complete destruction of salmonella by attaining the requisite temperature, especially in the egg's core region, which warms up more slowly, for at least ten minutes.
Finally the DE 3601406 A1 discloses a process for cooking chicken eggs, in which to avoid an infection with pathogens adhering in particular to the egg shell, the content of the eggs is transferred in the uncooked, raw state into a closable container; and the egg content is cooked in this container so that the egg shell does not make any contact at all with the cooking water.
Apart from the fact that with this barely practical method pathogens can still come into contact with the egg content when the egg content is separated from the shell, the salmonellae that already existed in the egg substance cannot be rendered harmless by the subsequent customary cooking process.
The document WO-A-9514388 discloses a process, in which for a salmonella-free preparation chicken eggs are heated to over 90.degree. C. during a first preparation phase and thereafter are cooled during a second preparation phase and then held at a pasteurization temperature ranging from 55.degree. C. to 60.degree. C.
The DE-A-2805373 discloses an egg cooker, which exhibits an electrically heated cooking container, which can be closed with a lid and in which the eggs are cooked by means of water or water vapor. Following passage of the cooking period, the eggs are quenched with cold water, which is taken from a water container above the cooking container, and following quenching leaves the cooking container through a drain. In so doing, salmonella-free preparation is not a factor.